Damen let his hand drop away. "I seem to be out of practice." Laurent didn't look upset, at least, and the way he said 'both of us' was reassuring. (Just...no kiss. How disappointing.) "Very well, I shall stand the reigning champion of awful Akielon love poetry."

He adjusted his embrace as Laurent burrowed deeper into his chest; the crook of his arm wrapped Laurent's shoulders, and the other arm he carefully wound around Laurent's waist to encircle him completely. The question was considered for a few moments before he spoke, trying to do justice to his home.

"I envy you your first glimpse of Ios. Better poets than I call it the place between cliff and sky, marble and stone gleaming bright as a beacon. I have seen it all my life - but each time I return, the White City seems more beautiful than I remember it." Damen could see it in his mind, and the words rose to his lips in those treasured pictures. "Clean and perfumed by the salt of sea breezes, green and blue among the white - it's as if the marble halls sprang from the limestone and rose toward the skies..."

He glanced at Laurent, suddenly self-conscious. "I'm no better at this than I am at poetry. You will simply have to see it for yourself."